First week complete

I ALMOST have a new car. Randy and I went again today to shop around. We have a few options. Tomorrow we'll go again and test drive them and make a decision. After that it should take about a week (although this is Haiti to anything could happen) to complete all the paperwork. Randy and Karen have been great about driving me everywhere but it's difficult to coordinate all our schedules and we will be able to accomplish much more when I have my own vehicle. The teachers are very busy in their classrooms and they are starting to look pretty good. I interviewed a woman today to assist in the special education class, we will most likely hire her tomorrow and then the staff will be complete. Each morning is spent answering the teacher's questions, helping them find needed supplies, finalizing the teacher's contract and organizing schedules for the year. We meet every morning for devotions, share announcements and discuss anything that needs to be discussed. The secondary students come in the afternoon to clean the school. Most of them are former students and it is wonderful to see so many familiar faces. They have grown up so much both in maturity and in size. Yesterday I was able to spend some time with Cadeau and Samuel my "little brothers", it was great to catch up with them. They are both doing very well. I've also had a little bit of time to talk to Manman Manise, my good friend from before. I'm feeling a tiny bit overwhelmed by the amount of work that must be completed before school starts. I still haven't put together all the furniture in my room that I bought and therefore my suitcases are still not completely unpacked, all in good time I suppose. I turned down an invitation to dinner this week just so that I could get a few things done around here and feel a bit more settled. Overall, I praise the Lord for a great first week in Haiti.

A taste of life outside of PAP

Yesterday was spent on the beach. It was a HOT day, the pool felt like a giant bathtub and the ocean wasn't much cooler. Despite the heat we had a great time. When we arrived I realized that I forgot to bring a book so I borrowed one from Heather and didn't open it once all day. It was great to meet the Hopp family who I had heard so much about. We had a lovely picnic by the water and just hung out all day. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures since the battery was dead on my camera.
Today (Sunday) I went with a work team (working with another organization) to Badyo which is a small region up on the mountain side. It's past Kenscoff for anyone familiar with Haiti. The roads were rough and a bit scary at times but we arrived safely. I have been in this area before but forgot how cold it could get. I was so cold all day! I never thought I'd say that in Haiti in September. We visited two church services. At the second service the group had a washing feet

ceremony. The members of the church really seemed to enjoy it and every last one of them had their feet washed. When the service ended and we were about to leave there was a massive rainstorm, we had to stay in the church for another 30 minutes while it died down. We had been invited to a Haitian home for a delicious Haitian meal consisting of rice and beans, fried plaintain, french fries, beet salad, potato salad and tomatoes, all my favourite food. The rain stopped completely and we were able to go for a quick walk in the area, we were so high up the mountain that it felt like we were in the clouds and since it was so foggy most of the time it was believable. I think the area is so incredibly beautiful. The pictures I took just don't do it justice. On the way home we stopped at a look out point to take pictures of the entire city. In the evening we were all invited to another missionary's home for dinner. Overall a great day, now I'm tired and ready to get some sleep as I have a busy week coming up!

Day 2 and 3, as requested

Well, I'm enjoying the best internet connection I've had so far and I'll try to take advantage of it. Although electricity has been good (most nights) this doesn't gaurantee that the internet works.
To quickly update you on what I've been up to days 2 and 3...
Yesterday I spent most of the day at school. We met with the teachers in the morning. We went over long range plans and scheduling. It went well. It was great to see the former teachers and meet the new teachers. It looks like a stellar staff this year. I really look forward to working with them. Their year long plans were well organized and they were eager to get to work. Next week they will come in each morning to set up their classrooms and start planning in more detail. Yesterday afternoon I did some administrative work and then we went looking for a car. Today we also spent most of the day looking for a car. We got some good leads, we're waiting for a few phone calls back with some more information and then we'll make our decision. It'll be nice to have my own vehicle. Tonight I went to the Bible Study at the school, there was a good turnout and it was interesting for me, but I need to work on my creole a bit to understand more. Tomorrow we're going to the beach... I know, rough life. We are going to be meeting with the pastor that works near Kalico beach and we're going to visit him and his family and enjoy the beach at the same time.
On a less factual note, I am really happy to be in back in Haiti. The transition has gone well so far. I feel like I've come home in many ways. I still know quite a few people here and I'm meeting new people all the time. It's good to be back. Pictures to come soon, I promise...

Day #1

Don't worry I won't number each and every day I'm here but I figured it was allowed for the first day. This morning I met with Randy and Karen at their house. Our meetings went great, they filled me in on all the goings on at the school for the last while. Next it was off to Epidor (fast food restaurant) for lunch. I drove for the FIRST time in Haiti and it went well. I don't have a car yet but I drove Randy and Karen's. I am so glad that I learned standard before coming. As well, there are some traffic lights around town that run by solar power and this really helps merging onto the main road smoothly.
After lunch we went on a major shopping spree. I bought a bedroom set, a desk and a chair, this took all afternoon if you can believe it. Tonight Jenny (my roomate) offered to help me set up one of the bedside tables. Wow, it was worse than IKEA, there was an allen key but the instructions were in Spanish! You'd think after all the IKEA furniture I've put together over the years, I would have been a bit better at it. It took us 2 hours! And we still have two more items to go. Now I understand why you can pay at the store to have it assembled for you... if I wasn't so Dutch and so cheap!!
Tomorrow will also be very busy. We are spending the day at the school meeting with the teachers, going over their long term plans and working on their daily time schedules. I look forward to reuniting with the teachers I know from before and meeting the new teachers. And tomorrow night? I think I'll put together another peice of furniture, not sure if I can convince Jenny to help me or not...

I'm here!!!!

I'm here safe and sound. Unfortunately my luggage was overweight and they are really picky now so I had to pay extra. I was mortified by how much it cost but I just couldn't decide which items to leave behind and so I caved and paid the money.
The ride home from the airport was uneventful. I stopped by the school quickly but not very many people were there for me to see.
I arrived at my new place and was able to settle in a bit. Then Randy and Karen came over for dinner. It was great to see them and meet their new daughter. I unpacked some more and now I'm trying to quickly write this post before the internet stops working again.
Tomorrow I'm meeting with Randy to get started on the mound of work waiting to get done. I'll try to post pictures of our place as well.

Brits can "come on down"!!

I just read this in the Dominican Review this morning. This is a great sign and hopefully things continue to improve in Haiti.

"Port-au-Prince.– The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) has revised its travel advice for Haiti and no longer advises against all but essential travel to the Caribbean island.

Haiti has experienced a slump in visitors in recent years due to a combination of particularly violent weather conditions and political unrest. But the change in FCO advice means British travelers can now visit Haiti without having to buy special travel insurance.

However, despite the overall security situation improving, the FCO advice states that travellers should still ‘exercise a high degree of caution’ while travelling in the country."

Fundraising

Many friends and family have been asking me about how my fundraising is going. I thought I’d take a minute to explain on my blog how CDIA fundraises. Like all other NGOs (non-government organizations), CDIA relies on donations to fund the work that they do. Unlike many other NGOs, they do not require that those who work in the field raise a predetermined amount of money before they are able to serve overseas. When someone donates to CDIA the money is put together in one ‘pot’ so to speak and with the donated money the entire project is funded. More specifically salaries are paid, supplies are bought and repairs are made. A budget is created with the hope that if CDIA needs are made know and we are doing His Work the funds will come. CDIA will operate within the blessings it receives.

That being said, this year the budget has increased considerably with a third person (myself) being added to the payroll. As well, there are many students at the school who do not currently have a sponsor to pay their tuition and food expenses.

The Lord has greatly blessed CDIA financially in the past and we are confident that He will continue to bless us. We are extremely thankful to all the people who have made financial contributions in the past and who continually sponsor a child on a monthly basis.

As I mentioned on the side of the blog, if you are at all interested in making a contribution to CDIA or sponsoring a student at Adoration Christian School, please check out CDIA’s website to find out how to donate.

Summer in Ontario

Getting ready to go.... m'alle

In less than two weeks I will be in Haiti, hopefully enjoying a hot summer night! I have been super busy tying up some loose ends before I go. I have to apply for a permit to live in Haiti once I am there but many of the documents I need have to be completed here. So I've been to the police station, the OHIP office, the bank etc. And who knew it was so much work to change your address with every organization that you've ever received mail from?
I am thankful that I've also been able to fit in a few visits with friends and family. I spent a weekend at a cottage with friends and another weekend with my family. Needless to say, the time is flying by. I have to admit that I'm getting pretty excited. I hope that I'm not being overly optimistic and only remembering the parts I love about Haiti, but I honestly can't wait to be back. It's been too long (the last time I was there was March 2008). I can't wait to sit with my friends and colleagues and hear all about what's happened since I was last there. I look forward to the heat,the never ending sun (yeah for Vitamin D) and nights of sitting on the roof talking about nothing and everything. I look forward to fresh mangoes and Pate and rice and beans. I look forward to new challenges and new adventures.

Random Pictures

Home never smelled so sweet

I am home safely and have spent the last hour relishing unlimited internet time. I've sorted through some mail and chatted my parent's ears off. It's great to be home.
Yesterday's travels went relatively smoothly. I had 10 minutes in between trains to jump off, buy myself a ticket and then get back on the train, a seemingly simple task except when you have two large suitcases and there is often not an elevator or escalator in sight. Regardless, I managed to purchase a ticket with a few minutes to spare. I made it to the airport with time to spare and then discovered that my plane was delayed. I was quite concerned that I would miss my connecting flight in Frankfurt but despite only having 15 minutes I was able to make it, unfortunately one of my suitcases did not.
So I'm home, one suitcase lighter, but feeling good. I slept well and am excited to be attending my church this morning. I hope I have an uneventful month of visiting with family and friends and relaxing in preparation for a busy two years ahead. Pictures to follow...

For everything else there's Mastercard... except in Holland!

In case you haven't noticed, I can't seem to get spell check to work on this computer so I apologize for any spelling errors, which I know are lurking around but I can't quite find them.
I had a nice day in Amsterdam today with my cousin. We walked around, saw the floating flower market, did a little shopping, had lunch with my old friend from University and managed to avoid the rain until we arrived back home. It was a warm and sunny day and a beautiful day to be a tourist. Over dinner, my cousin informed my aunt and uncle that I needed to buy a train ticket back to Brussels and perhaps we should go tonight since the station will most likely be closed in the morning. So off I went with my uncle to buy myself a ticket. We arrived at the station only to realize that they don't sell international tickets there and they don't accept credit cards. Some confusion ensued as my uncle speaks very little English and my Dutch is not much better. Next we tried the ticket machine, it wouldn't accept my credit cards or debit card or cash. We drove to another train station that had a different machine. My uncle was able to purchase me a ticket for tomorrow morning that will get me to another city in Holland and from there I will try to buy a ticket to Brussels. When we returned home I had the thought that perhaps the train station tomorrow will also not accept my credit cards (strangely I had no problem using my credit card in Brussels) so I asked my uncle to take me to the bank to get out Euros just in case. So now I have enough Euros in my wallet to get me safely to Brussels, now I just hope that the station will be open and a real live person will be there to let me buy a ticket the rest of the way. Here's hoping....

Bike rides and movie making

I am enjoying my time in Holland immensely. Last night I went for a bike ride with my aunt and uncle all around Helmond. We stopped at my cousins Alinda and Patrick's home for a cup of tea. It was wonderful to see them, their English is very good so we were able to have a lovely conversation and get caught up on each other's lives. Today I spent the day with Marjan, Jeroen and their children. Although I can not understand their children, I found their stories and antics highly amusing. They found it very amusing that I did not understand Dutch and told their Mom that my English sounded very silly to them. We went for a walk in the village and bought a few groceries at the local super market. The afternoon was spent relaxing, watching the children swimming in the pool, and I caught up on my journal writing.
Tonight, the whole family came together for dinner to spend some time with me. My cousin's children quickly discovered that I could take small movies on my camera and for the rest of the dinner begged me to "take a picture with sound"and then show it to them. I now have MANY videos of them chatting away in Dutch. Hopefully my dad can translate them when I am home:)
Tomorrow Marjan and I will travel to Amsterdam and enjoy the sights there. In true Dutch form we bought water bottles and raisin buns for the train ride, because the food will be too expensive on the train:) We will hopefully meet up with a past University roomate of mine who currently lives in Amsterdam. I look forward to visiting some old familiar sights.

The Mother Land

Our flight out of Freetown was uneventful and everything went according to plan. We enjoyed our last Star beer in the airport restaurant and opted to not pay extra to sit in the VIP lounge, although the comfy couches were inviting.
It's so good to be back in Holland. It's been too long. I couldn't sleep on the train because I didn't want to miss any of the sights. It really reminded me of travelling Europe, except this time instead of a well packed backpack I had two large and heavy suitcases. Not ideal for train travel in Europe, in fact my suitcases caused me to miss one of my trains as I couldn't run from one track to another fast enough. I saw the train pulling away just as I arrived on the platform. Thankfully another train left 30 min. later and my cousin only had to wait an extra 10 minutes for me.
For some reason I was confused about dates and I thought that today was Thursday and that I only had one full day in Holland, but today is Wednesday and so I have two full days in Holland. Today I will relax, have a nice nap and tomorrow I will spend some time with my cousin Marjan and her kids and Friday Marjan will go with me to Amsterdam. I'm very thankful that it worked out for me to spend some time here with family.

Farewell Sierra Leone

Well it's goodbye Sierra Leone and Hello Holland. Tomorrow is the BIG day, we don't fly out until 7pm but we're leaving the hotel at 10:00am, welcome to Sierra Leone! The last few days have flown by. What a whirlwind of activity. Here's a few highlights to share with you. Thursday night was "Sierra Leone night". The participants put on quite the show with traditional dances and skits and a professional dance/drumming team was hired. We loved the entertainment and were enjoying ourselves immensely when one of the drummers took a python out of his backpack. This broke up the party quite quickly and everyone scattered. We were forced to spend the rest of the night in the bar with our co-tutours, what a drag!! Friday night was our second "Canada Night". We started off with a weak rendition of our National Anthem in English and French, which the participants loved. We played floor hockey, a trivia game, watched a slide show, played musical chairs and then danced to Sierra Leone music. Overall another success. Saturday night was the closing ceremony. Several dignitaries attended and it was quite the formal affair. We were presented with gifts and we presented several gifts to those we have worked with for the last few weeks. We ended with a dinner and then we went out with our co-tutours for a farewell reception. It was a nice ending to a wonderful time. Sunday we relaxed, we went to a church near by the hotel in the morning. It was quite the experience, although I really appreciated the message, I wish I had brought ear plugs as the noise from the microphone was tremendous. We were well received and invited back next week. Today we were back at the beach, a different one this time. The weather was gorgeous and we had a lovely day, sitting and relaxing.
Tomorrow we leave, but something tells me that I'll be back some day. We'll just have to see what the Lord has in store for my future.
I am looking forward to seeing my cousins and Aunt and Uncle once again. It's been too long since I was in Holland.

Sneaking the internet...

As I'm sure all my faithful fans have noticed, we haven't had access to the internet for a while now. And in typical TIA (This is Africa) fashion the satellite provider is not rushing over to fix it for us. So tonight I'm sitting in the front lobby of the Union office, borrowing their wireless signal on my friend's laptop. (Don't worry we got permission and didn't sneak in under the cover of darkness)
Things are going well. We had a snag in our program schedule as the second session of participants received the wrong start date for the program so we were not able to start on Friday as planned and had to shift the entire program back one day, which eliminated our "free" day in the middle of the program so now we are working 8 days straight with no break. Sometimes we comment about how it's ironic that we are working with a union:) We don't really mind because this time we are teaching all the same things as the first session so we don't need to prepare very much, regardless they are long days starting at 8:30am and ending at 9:oopm. We did receive an extra day break before the second session started so we headed back to River No. 2 beach for the day. The day wasn't exactly sunny but it didn't rain so we were happy. I have one funny story from the day. Karen and I decided to go for a walk and explore the beach area. When we neared the end of the beach I suggested that we take a look at a lagoon that was behind us. I remembered someone telling me that the lagoon was nice to swim in because it is calmer than the ocean. As we neared the lagoon, Karen told me that one of the Sierra Leone co-tutours told her that there was quicksand in the area. We were just getting close to the water when the sand all around us started to cave in. Of course our first thought was "quicksand"! I panicked, I started clawing at the sand trying to get out of the hole that was quickly forming all around us. I really thought it was the end and that my body would never be recovered! Shortly after the sand stopped sliding and we were both able to climb out. We dusted ourselves off and looked around. No one even seemed to notice what had happened. We were so relieved to be alive! We told some of the Sierra Leoneons about it but they didn't seem the least bit concerned and just stated that they'd had a lot of rain lately and that it wasn't anything to worry about. Regardless, our team leader said we had to stay in her sight for the rest of the day:)
The second session is going well. I am tiring of teaching the same thing over and over again, I could never be a rotary teacher. The practice teaching will begin again shortly and then we will sit and critique their lessons.
Time is flying by. We calculated that in 6 days we will be leaving. The time has flown by. Our team has done really well together. We keep saying that for four women we have had relatively no drama, pretty good hey?
I am starting to daydream about some new food options. We are convinced that the restaurant at the hotel only had 5 items that they prepare in many different ways! We are happy to be eating well and are careful not to complain around others but we sometimes make lists of the foods we will eat first when we are home.
I am looking forward to spending a few days in Holland and re-connecting with my Dutch family. I better get going as others are waiting to use the computer.

I feel like Paula Abdul...

Sunday we headed out to the Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary to see the chimps. It was amazing, they can really make a lot of noise when they want to. A few years ago 31 chimps escaped, all but 4 were captured or returned on their own. Unfortunately, one man was killed by a chimp while the chimps were at large. The sanctuary is well kept and we met some interesting people from the US and Britain who are also volunteering in Sierra Leone right now.
After the sanctuary we went to No. 2 River Beach. The beach was gorgeous. It rained the whole time but we had a good time nonetheless. I even swam for a bit.
Today the participants began their practice teaching. It feels a lot like the beginning episodes of American Idol, we have a Simon and so the rest of us take on the role of Paula Abdul. (sorry for those of you who don't watch this show and can't decipher the code)
Tonight, Angie and I went to visit a small village to check out the building of a school that is being funded by Canadians in Thunder Bay. It was a great visit. Of course we had to tour the entire village, meet the chief and have several impromptu speeches delivered to us. We loved it. After the busyness of the days here and the noise and pollution of Freetown, it was lovely to get out and walk around and breathe in the fresh air.
I'll update pictures when possible but it takes so long to upload and it's getting late.

Participants

A dear friend of mine e-mailed me and asked me to share a bit more about the participants of the workshop. Unfortunately, when we're not teaching we are preparing for our next workshop so we haven't had a lot of opportunity to spend time with them outside of the classroom. However, we have made an effort as a team to split up over lunch and sit with different groups and try to get to know them. Unfortunately, people from Sierra Leone don't as a habit talk while they are eating, so it is a bit difficult. Last night when we were working on the computers and the electricity went out, I had about 20 minutes of waiting so I talked to a few teachers. They are truly amazing people. They have all lived through the war and therefore have lost valuable years of education and yet they have persevered to achieve their goals. All the teachers we work with are from the rural areas and have had no education past secondary school, in fact many of them have not completed secondary school. It is for this reason that they are invited to the workshops. One man I spoke to last night must be in his 60's. He worked for 10 years in a mine as an electrician, during the war he was not able to work but after the war he was asked to be the teacher of the local school. Most often, the teacher is the smartest or the most educated person in the village and is asked to take on the role of the teacher. Many of them are not paid for months at a time, sometimes even years, and yet they get up every morning and teach their students because they feel it is their calling. Despite the fact that they do not have access to regular newspapers or the internet, they are surprisingly quite informed about world events. They truly inspire me and I have a lot of respect for them. I am learning so much from them.
Tomorrow is Saturday, we will continue the workshop but Sunday will be a day of rest. We hope to visit the Chimpanzee Sanctuary and visit a popular beach. Monday and Tuesday next week we will continue with the same group of participants. Wednesday is another day off (lazy aren't we?), and Thurs. night our new participants will arrive for the second session. Action packed, not so?

Pictures are worth a thousand words, not so?

Canada Night!

Some pictures of the participants hard at work. They are divided into groups for the morning, these are pictures of group two, they're my favourite group!

Not so?

The language here continues to intrigue me. A common expression here is "not so?". It is basically asking someone if they agree with you, but it appears at the end of almost every sentence. For example: Canada is a wonderful country. Not so?
Tonight we taught the teachers how to use the computers. Most of them have never touched one in their lives. We decided to start them on google and let them search for a topic of their choice. Most of them started typing sentences in the search bar so we switched them over to Microsoft Word and let them type away to their hearts content. They loved it. At one point the electricity went out. When it came back on one person was shocked to see the wallpaper picture of fish on their screen. They yelled, "come quick and get these fish off the screen, I want to type!" It was priceless.
Last night's Canada night went well. We played hockey with mini sticks, played Canadian Trivia and watched a slide show of pictures of Canada. We drank some Star beer and soft drinks and danced the night away. (okay so we ended at 9pm but that's late around here, since morning prayer starts at 5am and is broadcast over a loud speaker)